IMPENDING DOOM

Six hours later.

Bosco was exhausted and hungry as he finished working on the last burn victim in East African General Hospital on the outskirts of Dodoma city. He walked a hundred meters to the Medical personal lounge to get something to drink or eat.

In the beginning, public hospitals as well as private hospitals lacked facilities for their staff to eat and drink or unwind after their busy shifts as it was not considered a priority. The medical staff kept on going on strike due to these poor working and living conditions, at first, the government increased the salaries thinking it was the main issue but it did not resolve the problem. Only when they held a heart-to-heart dialogue did they realize that money was not the only issue. Far from it, welfare was also something of vital importance. From then, it was passed that all Health facilities in the Federation of East Africa have a refreshment point for staff which they enjoyed without dissing out any money. Others called it a privilege and others termed it as a right of being a health worker sacrificing to the betterment of humanity. Bosco Masaba did not indulge himself in such philosophical debates, all he cared about was satiating his hunger at no cost. As a student on a government scholarship, he was always short on money. The cost of living in the city of Dodoma was high, and his little allowance was not enough to cater to all his needs.

He found a seat and gestured for the waitress seated behind the counter to come and serve him. Even after gesturing for her to come over, her eyes were still glued to the large TV screen. He directed his attention to the screen to see what was distracting her from her duty.

NASA REDEEMER FAILS! That was the headline displayed in red with a gloomy soundtrack accompanying it on the TV. Behind it was an artistic depiction of the asteroid 82031 DOOM spilt into two uneven parts.

"Welcome to BBC Global Service…" said a handsome human news anchor appearing on the screen once the headline was minimized. In this era of Artificial Intelligence, rarely did broadcasting stations use human news anchors on radio or tv as it was cheaper and convenient for them. They had created templates for some of the famous news anchors and the AI new anchors could keep on switching between them depending on the occasion not to appear robotic.

But once in a while when there was some news of grave significance to be communicated. Veteran news anchors or freelancing journalists will be whisked into the studio to communicate the news humanly.

Like many other professions, full-time news anchoring or journalism was killed off by the advent and commercialization of AI services which started in 2023.

"I am Fred Odhiambo, at 1600 hours GMT, on Tuesday the twentieth of January 2032.

The first line of hope for mankind, the NASA Redeemer spacecraft has failed in its mission to deflect the asteroid 82031 Doom from impacting the earth.

According to verified information from NASA, the spacecraft knocked and broke the asteroid into two unequal parts upon impact. The smaller fragment from the asteroid is six miles long with the biggest fragment being roughly eleven miles long. Based on the latest simulations and calculations, the smaller fragment is off the collision path with our planet by 200 miles. But the bigger fragment is still on course to impact our blue planet.

The World Government has entered an emergency meeting to address the impending crisis facing humanity. Over to our correspondent Oscar Webb in Zurich."

"Hello Oscar," the news anchor Fred Odhiambo greeted the correspondent who was shown on the left half of the screen. With the building serving as the World Government headquarters in the background, and several flags of different nationalities flying at half-mast.

"Hello Fred, how is London?" Oscar Webb asked.

"London is gloomy and anxious for the latest development in the Zurich emergency meeting, Enlighten us on the latest developments." Fred Odhiambo replied.

"Thank you, Fred, the officials from the World Government, Earth military, and the Space Agencies of Europe, America, and Asia entered a closed-door meeting. It is so far two hours and so far no communication has been passed.

Looking around Zurich the World Government headquarters, the atmosphere is full of tension and urgency which is unlike the precise, confident, and systematic way of life here in Switzerland. The failure of NASA Redeemer came as a surprise to the officials here who were brazenly confident that this was the final solution to the impending doom of mankind.

Signs of division have emerged between the politicians of the World Government and the Generals of the respective continents who are advocating for a nuclear strike with the space agencies being overlooked and blamed for this failure.

General Zhang from Asia assured the international press earlier on before the meeting, that Asia won't be held back by politicking at the Zurich meeting, once they (Asia) get the precise dates and coordinate on when the bigger half of the asteroid is expected to enter outer earth atmosphere. They will throw at it whatever they have.

In the meantime, we are having our fingers crossed as we hope for a favorable outcome from this meeting. Over to you Fred." The Correspondent summed up the situation in Zurich.

"Excuse me, Doctor, what should I get you?" Someone interrupted his concertation on the tv news. He turned round to see that it was the waitress, she had approached him as he paid attention to the tv.

"Oh, you mean me." Bosco was surprised to be called a doctor, he was still a medical student and not yet qualified to be called a doctor. The majority of the people and patients who saw him in the white coat concluded that he was a doctor. He was now tired of having to explain himself. Whenever he told them that he was not a doctor, he could see the disappointment on their faces, some even refused to have him treat them. So, he no longer bothered to correct them.